Meredith's Lower Manhattan Diary Many of you were concerned about our well being, and that of other friends in Lower Manhattan, in the wake of the World Trade Center disaster. Below are some daily notes from Meredith.Tuesday, September 11, 2008 I listened to the reading of the names today. I can't believe that the site is still a big hole in the ground.

About a month ago we went to see "Man on Wire," the film made from Philippe Petit's book about his walk between the towers. Philippe and the filmmaker were there, and spoke briefly. One of the people who helped Philippe the most was a man named Jim Moore. It was Jim's loft where John had met Philippe; lots of folks used it as a rehearsal space, apparently. The film was wonderful. We left feeling a bittersweet combination of melancholy and affectionate memory for the city as it was in the rough and tumble days of the late 70s and early 80s. Thursday, September 11, 2003 What an odd day. Last night we stayed up late thinking and talking about the WTC, and as a result I overslept. Woke up at 8:23 for an 8:40 class! The strain of rushing out the door made me forget, for a moment. But when I arrived at school I rather expected the teacher to say something-- anything-- acknowledging what day it was. Nothing. Throughout the day people would ask "How are you?" and when I'd say "Well, I'm having a hard time today" they would inevitably look puzzled and ask why. Nobody seemed to know. I realize I'm surrounded by very young people, many of whom aren't from New York, but nobody seemed to be thinking about it at all. I had brought my Phillipe Petit book with me and looked at it throughout the day. Finally at the end of the day I ran into my friend Irene -- I'd been going to look for her -- and had a good, real talk about it all. She was completely empathetic. When I got home John told me he'd listened to the reading of the names. I wish I could have. Saturday, September 14, 2002 This was the Big Week for lower Manhattan, of course. We ended up getting together with our neighbors in the building for a potluck dinner, like the ones we had immediately after the towers fell. I read all the names of the victims, which the Times published. Later that night we biked down to the site, which is now much more open, as are the surrounding streets. I found that very discombobulating: I'd have one foot on familiar ground, just as it was before everything happened, and the other on the new world. I kept comparing my location with familiar landmarks, many of which are exactly as they were. I looked up a lot. It still seems so improbable that they fell. We did get a new book about the towers: To Reach the Clouds, by Philippe Petit. He's the guy who walked a tightrope between the towers in 1974, when they actually weren't quite complete. The book is his story of planning and carrying out the feat, with pictures. There is one picture of Philippe on the tightrope with a plane overhead! The angle makes it appear that the plane is headed for the tower, but of course it isn't. Still, it's quite eerie. But I like the book: it gives me a way to think about the towers that's a more positive memory. John knows, or knew, Philippe, from back in the day of early loft-ites. He used to rehearse with the American Mime Theater in Philippe's loft.....Monday, September 9 We have been mentally bracing ourselves for the onslaught of 9/11 associated programs and newspaper articles, etc. You never know, though, what's really going to hit home. Today I finally got the bill for my visit to the hospital, when I got an ear infection following the collapse (due to all the muck in the air).Thursday, January 9 We just returned from a trip to Europe (for a dance competition) where we were bombarded with questions about whether it was "normal" down here yet. Well, it's not. There are basically no working pay phones south of Worth Street. Also, when they restored power and phones they just laid cable in the street and bundled it to the side. Then they put wooden barricades over it, then asphalt over that. So Lower Manhattan has all these little lumps everywhere. If you didn't live here before you'd think it was hilly.Wednesday, January 8 Today I took down the flags.Tuesday, December 25 My brother is in town with wife, baby and mother-in-law. They wanted to go to Ground Zero. So we walked down Church Street. You can get practically all the way there now; they stop you at the post office that was just across the street from the WTC. The post office itself appears completely undamaged. No burns, no broken windows. One of the odd things about it as a landscape is its abruptness. Church Street looks normal all the way down to the point where it simply stops. Big gash in the earth filled with rubble. And dirt! You never see dirt in Manhattan. The fires have stopped but close up you can still smell leftover smoke. Tourists are everywhere. It's bizarre to watch people jockeying for just the right position to have their picture taken next to the devastation. Monday, December 10They took the barricades on Duane Street down today. Wednesday, October 17 A friend emailed me an aerial map of Lower Manhattan. You can see our building. You can also see how the debris spread away from the site: part of the map is gray and fuzzy-looking (that's our neighborhood!). I attempted to attach it but it's too big, even cropped. This is the web address: http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~rdgarr/WTC.htm. To find our building, go to the right edge and look for the red marker. Look directly to the left of the top of that marker, at the first cross street. That's us. Sunday, October 15 Today I walked south of Chambers Street for the first time. I went below Wall Street to my doctor's office. I thought I had finished reacting, but I had not seen the site from ground level. Broadway is lined with people staring and taking pictures, but I just wanted to run the other way.Tuesday, October 2 My flags, made with wood glue and tape, are coming apart as the rain and wind of the past weeks hits them. Today I took them all indoors and re-created them with my sewing machine. I guess it's a little silly, but I feel better anyway.Saturday, September 30 Today we found that we knew, and taught, another victim of the attack. I guess we'll be finding out for months to come.Thursday, September 27 For the first time since the attack, John closed the blinds today. Before, it was almost as if we thought if we kept looking, the towers might not be gone.Tuesday, September 25 Two weeks later and the smell of smoke is still in the air. One of the vehicles damaged and covered with ash in the attack is still parked in front of our building, where they hauled it in the days following the crisis.Monday, September 24 Today we opened the New York Times and saw a picture of one of our students in the "Missing" section. I think we both had pretended that MAYBE nothing had happened to her, MAYBE she got out or wasn't there when it happened. Until now. We both cried. What must her fiancee be feeling? The police continue to move the cordons around, in ways that make no sense to us. We are exhausted every time we try to go out and get anything done, because getting anywhere takes forever. I walk down our street to the drugstore, but five minutes later as I come back the street is blocked and police tell me I have to go around. ??? What can be happening on our little street, which doesn't even go through to the highways? Why are they changing everything? I don't know what to tell people who are trying to get here, because even the NYC map isn't accurate now. My friends Carlos and John actually made it over and we all played music together. Sunday, September 23 Decided we must arrest our prolonged gallop through house projects. Got up and made a LIST of what we would try to finish. So, stripped and painted two more radiators; put together the stripped and refinished chair; cut down a bookcase that never did fit its corner, put it back in, threw out numerous old junky videotapes that had lived in it; put away tools and paint, etc. Then, called students (!); spoke to relatives. It is very unpleasant in our neighborhood today as it is filled again with people, who feel to us like sightseers. I'm sure they just feel the need to be near the site for their own healing, but it still feels like an intrusion. A vendor sells WTC T-shirts across the street until the police chase him away.Saturday, September 22 This morning the police moved the blockade north again, from Chambers (two blocks south) to Duane (our street). Very baffling, and a little annoying, since our 24-hour deli is a block south. Also, that deli was open during the crisis, even with no power, and handed out water and juice to the rescue teams. The owner slept in the police sleeping quarters! All very confusing. At the end of the evening John and I went for a bike ride out of the neighborhood. The farther north you go, the more normal the streets are: people in nightclubs, eating ice cream, flirting, buying stuff. I thought it would cheer me up but it didn't. Watched another Eddie Izzard video -- DRESS TO KILL. There's a bit about terrorism; the Oklahoma City bombing had happened recently. Obviously he doesn't make fun of that (!), but it was oddly comforting to hear someone talking about it in the abstract and trying to make some sort of sense of it. Slept well, no nightmares.Friday, September 21 Jim, my student from Philadelphia, came in today (!!!!!!) Yes, he drove up and made it through the police lines. Quite impressive, I thought. So I had, in total, a normal work day. Still in avoidance mode as both of us had nightmares last night. So, we watched the same video again. Pretty silly behavior, I know.Thursday, September 20 We taught three lessons today (wow). We also managed to get to post office and bank. Things are looking up. John's birthday present came (that's what was at the post office). He continues his mad dash through home improvement. At night we look for things to do or read to take our minds away from events. We watched Eddie Izzard's GLORIOUS show. It is wonderful to laugh out loud.Wednesday, September 19 Things are closer to normal today; people are starting to get annoyed and cranky about the difficulties of living in what is basically a war zone. An independent production team came by and filmed a bunch of us in the building for a show on MSNBC. I went to Canal Street to find a bank to pay payroll taxes and to pick up a package from the Post Office. But the bank was closed and police surrounded the post office. They told me they had a "situation." The street is filled with vendors selling red white and blue everything.....bandannas, T-shirts, pins, ribbons. It's hot. All the wrong places are open. You can buy American flags but you can't get into the post office.... One of my couples came by today for a lesson! They live only a block away. They were quite determined to make it in and to do something "normal." I actually forgot about things for at least half an hour. One of John's couples came by as well. But the area is still restricted to residents, so our clientele is limited. :) At night we went out for a (very proscribed) walk. We stood at Greenwich and Duane (two blocks away) from which you can see straight downtown, and downhill, into the rubble. Tonight was very clear. They were pouring water on the still-burning debris. A huge floodlight was shining from behind the pile. With the smoke and steam and the unearthly light, it looked as you imagine Hell to look.Tuesday, September 18 A student rings the doorbell and tells us he is still getting married and he and his fiancee still want their dance lessons! We schedule for Thursday evening. More house projects. John has been going quite mad doing things. So far I have:

sorted through an entire box of filing and put it all away

sorted through all our CDs, put them all in small jackets and filed them

stripped the old cabinet in the kitchen

stripped and painted the radiators in the little studio

made four flags

made a "skirt" for the hot water heater in the bathroom

mended one vintage dress

completed more rows for my quilt

assisted John in HIS enterprises, which include:

installing all the kitchen cabinets we had bought at IKEA;

installing a bathroom cabinet;

removing the old, small mirrors from the little studio and installing the big ones

installed a set of old kitchen shelves in a new location, with a mirror backing them Monday, September 17 Lots of house projects. Getting a little cabin fever! As you walk through our neighborhood, there are flyers pasted up everywhere: pictures of the missing. Hand-printed thank you notes to firemen and rescuers. Signs from neighborhood businesses offering showers, massages, food to rescue workers. Notices from community members: Bring coffee to the firehouse (oh, but ONLY Chock Full O'Nuts coffee); children from these schools have been relocated to these other schools; notes, poems, pictures.Sunday, September 16 The phones came on today. 400 emails! I spend most of the day trying to answer them. Saturday, September 15 Saturday. We go up to the community meeting at Canal Street, which turns out to be useless. Shirley brings me a peace offering of organic spaghetti. I give her a hug and to my credit do not bring up anything I want to bring up! John goes to buy metric socket wrenches in an effort to take the housing off the generator. He would like to get it to work, then Helen says she will buy it for her house upstate. I go to Beekman. It is nearly impossible to get there, as it is not only below the "frozen zone" (that's what they call this area)but on the East Side, where all the municipal buildings are. But when I get there I am pretty much the only patient. In the emergency room proper there is one police officer standing and another lying down; apparently his eyes are bothering him, he is probably a rescuer. I feel quite sheepish about coming to the hospital when there are thousands of dead people a few blocks away. But the doctor seems glad to have something to do, and tells me that actually an ear infection can be quite serious and I am right to take care of it. Now of course I have to get the prescription filled! By the time I make it home I am quite exhausted. John seems incredibly energetic. He takes his bicycle and goes uptown for the prescription and to Grainger's to ask about the generator. They are no help. After John returns he is determined to return the generator. I can't believe he has the strength, but I help him get it down from the roof and loaded onto our big hand truck, and down the hall to the back elevator, which is working. My ear infection has really caught up with me. I think I had it as early as the first dinner evening, because I remember hearing a roaring in my ears that night, but I thought it was the heat and closeness and the sound of the lantern. So I lie down and fall asleep. When I wake up John is back, and amazingly enough has managed to get a full refund for the generator! He had to make kind of a fuss, but he got it done. But on the way back he was challenged twice and had to go to three different checkpoints. One slightly sad note: during the real crisis everyone left their doors open and we all wandered in and out of one another's spaces. As soon as the power came on all the doors shut.Friday, September 14 We had decided to try to get up early so we could do work while there was daylight, so of course today it is pouring rain. Sam Champion had said we'd experience a "moisture-starved front"! John gets up and announces that he wants to buy a generator, he is tired of the fire hazard of all the candles and lamps. He talks to Tracy and Sim, they agree to kick in. they hand us a lot of cash. Bush comes to NY. His arrival is presaged by F-16s. All of us are completely spooked by any airplane sound, so the quick and low-flying F-16s are nerve wracking. Plus we can't help but think that with Bush here we are a target again. They are pulling ruined rescue vehicles out of the wreckage and hauling them into our neighborhood, which seems to be a sort of staging area for the work. Two cars, completely flattened, lie atop one another like lovers. Many of the trucks and vans and cars are covered not only with gray ash but with tangled ribbons of metal. Eventually we figure out that they are Venetian blinds from the windows of the Trade Center. John and I go farther uptown - into the Village - and find diapers and flags. We still can't find batteries. We do find a pair of bath towel flags - they are the biggest we can locate. I make four flags from our old red and white striped beach towel, blue lining fabric, and a sheet. For the first flag I cut out fifty stars. For the rest I make a stencil and use fabric paint. It takes me days. We also buy a $600 generator at Grainger, a wholesale contractor. It is huge, and after we start moving it (in the rain) through the streets of Soho John decides we need a bigger hand truck. So we stop at Metropolitan Lumber and get a sturdier model with bigger wheels. It's still a fairly monumental task and we are afraid we won't get through the cordon. They of course stop us at Canal. We show the bill of sale and open the box so they can examine the generator….. and we actually get through! Then four of us - John, Sim, George and I - haul this thing (it turns out to weigh 160 pounds, although the men sadly underestimate it) up to the roof. Now of course we need fuel. John and Sim go out but are unsuccessful. They make the mistake of asking the police whether they can carry gasoline through the line. I play the ukelele for baby Lucy and she dances, sitting on our dusty floor in her little diaper. John and I go out again, planning to sneak gasoline through the cordon. We buy some groceries and the gas and put it all in a bag. I am intensely anxious. When we make it through the line I don't know whether to be pleased or not. After all this effort the men are unable to get the generator going. It has a pull string like a lawnmower, but the string catches and won't go further. We call an information number, but of course cannot get help. During dinner the lantern goes out. John takes the Coleman lantern home and nearly sets himself on fire trying to relight it. At the end of dinner Mafa begins talking about the balance between loss of personal freedom and security. She makes the mistake of referring to Giuliani. Shirley goes ballistic. When I try to reason with her, she talks over me. Once again I lose my temper. John tells Shirley that she has a habit of dominating the conversation and not listening to others. Shirley apologizes and tells me I can speak. This only makes me angrier - since when is she in charge? Once again dinner ends bitterly. Shirley tries to apologize but I am having none of it. It is a frustrating end to a frustrating day, but at midnight the building suddenly trembles and our smoke alarm goes off - then all the lights spring to life. Our power is back! Everyone EXCEPT George and Shirley runs into the hallway grinning and yelling. I am still angry and very awake. I sit at the kitchen table finishing my flags. Thursday, September 13 Third day. Today what I find myself thinking about is rotting. I think about what it will be like downtown when the bodies start rotting. I think about the garbage on the street, which won't be picked up for some time, and that it will begin to rot. I think about all the food in everyone else's refrigerators downtown, and how all of it will rot. I think about the smell, and I think about the health hazard. To my utter amazement, when I say this to Simeon, he tells me that Sanitation is picking up trash and washing the street. I look out the window and he is right! Later I see him sweeping the street. But I still don't know what to do. I think about leaving again. I guess we could take all our student cards plus the palm Pilot and find a space to rent to maybe put together some income. Maybe we should just stay here. If the power goes on we could get work done on the house. We could paint, clean up, go through papers…… Helen told us that after the first plane struck she went out to vote! AND to pick up her mail at Canal Street! Talk about "acting as if". We are sort of trapped down here. We can leave, but where would we go? And if we leave, what about the cat - and Mafa's cats? And once we leave, it will be a long time before we can get back. They are not letting anyone south of 14th Street. Mafa just got back, so we think they ARE starting to let people into the nabe. But the TV keeps saying there is no one down here. There are so many mistakes in the coverage that they keep having retractions. Mafa has a newspaper that shows pictures of the wreckage and a map of downtown, indicating that our neighborhood has power but no people - of course, the opposite of what happened! The eeriest thing is how this now resembles the Tribeca of 1977, when everyone moved in here. No World Trade Center; no yuppies (the only people staying are the die-hard lofties); no noise at night from the ventilation fans of overpriced restaurants; the streets are not full of people. When people want to reach each other, they call up to each other's windows from the street and leave notes on each other's doors. We go up to Soho and buy what we can find: milk for the baby, fresh food. At a hardware store just north of Canal we find dust masks and more batteries. They are checking people's ID's at Canal Street. The Woolworth Building is once again the highest building in our southern skyline. Tonight we all have dinner together again at Helen's. We manage not to have arguments. After dinner we talk about what we can do to let people know we are here, without either implying "poor us" or "heroic us". Sim and tracy come up with the idea of a banner that says "Here to Stay" with American flags added. We all think it is great. The hallway is filled with candles, which is simultaneously comforting and nerve wracking.Wednesday, September 12 It's so odd to be so close to the site but so out of it re information. We have a battery operated radio, but of course no TV or newspapers. Already the radio is offering "after the fact" human interest stories - someone who got out, people who are looking for their relatives who were in the building, stories about the WTC itself. No one is telling us anything we need to know: are there new fires? Are they near us? When if ever will we get power and phones? Should we leave? Rumors fly: there is a gas main leak near City Hall and the police are evacuating everyone; One Liberty Plaza has fallen and was full of asbestos. None of them can be confirmed. Today the smell of smoke is very pronounced and frightening. It comes and goes as the wind changes. We went out in the morning and saw that many of our neighbors had stayed. Morgan's was open by candlelight, and still had candles (although they were out of batteries). We bought fruit and cat food. It is hard to get around - police and soldiers (with guns!) on every corner, sometimes trying to stop you. At one point at West Broadway we say "we live here" and a policeman says "not any more" and forces us north. We manage to get around the building and come again into the front. The streets are filled with debris. Not just the ash and burned papers but dust masks, shoes, socks. Simeon found keys to Mafa's house. We fed the cats - tuna - and the turtle - but he was completely frantic, racing around his bowl trying to get out. The streets have pallets of bottled water thrown down here and there, and big gallon jugs of water in some places, just lying there for anyone who needs it, I guess. All day there is a sense of neighborhood camaraderie - we brought batteries to Bob Curtis when we realized that we had a kind we couldn't use, George and Shirley offered us soy milk, et cetera, et cetera. Of course it all ended tonight, when over a pasta dinner by Helen she and Shirley got into a yelling match about what was the right thing for the US to do - as if they really knew, as if they really disagreed, and as if it made any difference anyway. During dinner we all talked about what we did that morning. We also started talking about how lucky we were: none of us got trapped in the elevator when the power went out; none of us were near the Center (and Tracey was planning to go there! And we had been there the day before!) Simeon pointed out that those big planes are hard to manage and that if the pilots had missed they could well have crashed right in our neighborhood, could have been right on top of the building. We go up on the roof frequently to see whether we can find out anything. Usually not, but we often end up talking (shouting) to our neighbors on adjacent buildings.Tuesday, September 11 Today I woke to the sound of Helen screaming. It made me think of the night her husband died. John came running into the bedroom and said, "A bomb went off in the World Trade Center!" Helen came running in and said that on TV they said an airplane had smashed into the tower. We ran out to the front of the loft by the big windows. The tallest tower had a huge black gash in it, very high up, and smoke was pouring out of the building. You could see fire glowing through the windows. Melted silver metal smeared over the edge of the bottom of the gash like mercury. Pieces of paper twinkled in the sun as they drifted away. You could see windows falling out, they shone too. Horribly enough, it was beautiful. And, it was a beautiful day. We stood staring in shock, then turned on the TV. They showed the same picture that we could see from our windows. We looked out the window again. We began asking each other what we should do. Simeon came in from next door. "Can you believe this?" he asked. He ran out again. As we stood looking at the first tower, we saw the explosion and fireball in the second tower. We couldn't see what had caused it because we were at the wrong angle, but the fireball was so huge and gave off such heat that we could feel it through the windows. We took a step back. We were horrified. This fire seemed even bigger. "The people," John kept saying. "The people." At this point we were still thinking that it was just a horrible tragedy: the fires would burn, they would be put out, people would die, they would rebuild the floors of the WTC. We were pretty sure that nobody would be coming to the studio that night, nor would we get a cleaning person! But we thought life would be relatively normal. We started hearing the phone. Friends from faraway and from New York proper were calling to see if we were OK. We called our families and reassured them that we were fine, although very shaken up. John went out to buy a newspaper and I began calling students to confirm appointments for Thursday (!). I also kept busy answering calls. One student that I talked to was in a panic because his fiancée worked in the WTC…..on the 100th floor. I hung up and went back to the window. As I watched, I heard a rumble and people screaming. Then the second tower collapsed. I was so terrified that I screamed and backed away from the window. I remember thinking at the time that it was a stupid reaction - how would that help me if the tower was really coming towards me? I also was terrified because John was down in the street. When he came up he was very shaken. He had seen the tower collapse from the corner of Reade and West Broadway, and a huge panicky mob running blindly away. He helped a lady with a baby carriage get out of the way of the people. Behind the people was an enormous plume of smoke and debris from the collapsing tower. He almost didn't make it across the street. Now it began to seem like a much bigger disaster. All our neighbors were running in and out of each other's lofts. People were debating whether or not we should leave. With the mob in the streets we weren't sure that we'd be better off down there. Tracey was very worried about her baby, Lucy. Then the first tower collapsed. The television instantly went to snow, since the transmitters were up on top of WTC 1. John said we had better get ready to go and we began frantically running around the loft. I couldn't find the cat at first, because of course she was hiding. I threw things out of the cat carrier and stuffed Rachel in. I told John to find our passports. I got contact lens stuff, my medication, glasses, John's glasses, and the Palm Pilot. We still didn't know whether we should leave. We kept hearing on the news that the police were evacuating lower Manhattan, but we heard no announcements on the street. Out our windows we could see pedestrians leaving and thick smoke from fires. We worried that the fires could get out of control and move towards us. Through the day and evening we'd periodically see another person or couple with an overnight bag, trundling up Church or West Broadway, away from the smoke. Not knowing what to do with ourselves, we cleaned a lot of the house. As much as we could clean with no power. After 7 collapsed (another huge rumbling roar) the electricity went out but the water went back on. With water and gas we all could cook. Pasta was the order of the day. We found the old Coleman lantern - actually, we found 2 (fortunately since the first one didn't work) and pulled it out next to the front windows as the light faded. John got it working - we were the envy of our neighbors. Not knowing what to do with ourselves, we cleaned a lot of the house. As much as we could clean with no power. Tonight Simeon and Helen got her battery operated TV working, but it has less info than the radio did. All night you could hear the rumbling of heavy machinery, people yelling, and helicopters overhead.